The Golden Bough
by Lady Otori
Summary: [When she returns it's been six months and three days too long. He knows this because when it hits the eight thousandth hour since she left him at the village gates, he stops dead in his tracks.] A darker Christmas story inspired by the Midwinter traditions of various cultures. Slightly angst but has a happy ending: I promise! KakaSaku twoshot.
1. Chapter 1

**The Golden Bough**

 **AN:** This wouldn't leave my head, even though it's Christmas and a nice, fluffy time of year and I'm supposed to be working on my other fic, _Performance_ (which you should totally go read), instead of writing weird pseudo-angst. It's ever so slightly an AU in that I've incorporated hints of superstitions from around the world regarding the power of plants :-)

 _Naruto_ doesn't belong to me, otherwise Kakashi and Sakura would be kissin' everyday.

* * *

When she returns it's been six months and three days too long. He knows this because when it hits the eight thousandth hour since she left him at the village gates, he stops dead in his tracks and the dogs trailing around him plow into the backs of his knees.

"Kakashi," she says, strangely devoid of surprise, and it's only then that he realises he's in almost the very same spot he was standing in all those months ago.

"Sakura-chan," he says in reply. Behind her, the curious faces of Izumo and Kotetsu peer from within the warmth of the guardhouse, visible only barely through the haze his breath is making in front of his eyes. It's very cold.

"If I didn't know better," her tone aims for light but comes off a little accusatory, "I could believe you've been standing there since I left."

He blinks, once, twice, as all the colours of the world come rushing back in sharp relief in front of his eye. Disorientated, he manages his usual vapid smile as he holds out a hand for her heavy travel pack, ignoring the way her green eyes are peeling apart the very essence of his being with every careful pass over his body. She's checking for injuries, current or healed, but the way her eyes look so impossibly bright wounds him deeper than any steel.

All at once, Kakashi realises that she's hit the mark: his physical body certainly hadn't been waiting by the gatehouse for her, but he is quite sure everything else that made him Kakashi had been.

"You're over four thousand hours late," he says instead, following as she wordlessly invites him to accompany her to the Hokage Tower with a jerk of her head. The dogs melt away into the surroundings as they walk, and he's left with only the sharp gaze of a small pug boring into his back. Those four thousand hours were a mystery to him; he'd have to ask Pakkun how the life of Hatake Kakashi had been progressing since Sakura missed her midsummer deadline.

She doesn't comment on the strange way he keeps time. Team 7 are the only people who seem to accept that it flows differently for him; not in an unconventional sense, nor is he any kind of time traveller, but the days and hours and minutes by which people set their lives, all synchronised with one another, have little in common with the rhythms by which Kakashi's life moves. If he says she's four thousand hours late, then Sakura will believe him over anyone else.

"When did you start counting?" She queries, finally finding the lightness she's been aiming for in her voice.

"When you said goodbye," he replies, and watches as the tentative levity is chased away from her gaze. "The first time."

"Hmm."

He feels a little vindictive.

They walk in silence, footsteps crunching on the pockmarked ice of the cobbled Konoha streets. It's almost the dead of winter, and the shining trees that give the village its identity have deepened to the rich darkness of the evergreens, their spiny boughs decorating the shops and houses that line the main thoroughfare. Greenery is so deeply ingrained in their lives that even when it is thorny and bitter, and wont to hurt and prick fingers rather than delight, the citizens of Konoha cannot help but hold it close. It's a good metaphor for how Kakashi currently feels and if things were a little different he would share it with Sakura, who had always appreciated the poetry in nature.

But things are not different - except they are - and so they trudge beside one another in the cool light of a low sun, exchanging nothing but the mingled clouds of their breath.

* * *

Three days pass after her return before he runs into her again and this time her eyes are full of theories. She has been speaking to people, and they've told her about how he's been - or not been - over the last year. He can see the questions threatening to break out of the polite way she murmurs a greeting while clutching a scroll in her slender fingers. Sakura is the only person he's seen for weeks who is not wearing gloves, but then the bitterness of the Snow Country weather she's returned from must make the winter of Konoha feel like struggling spring. Nevertheless, it's a practised motion as he stretches his hands out and traps her pale white fingers beneath the heavy wool of his own.

Speculation plays itself across her face before she gives him a small smile, a real one, and takes a little time in extracting her hands from his warm grasp and heading off on her business. She may have theories about how he's been living but for now he has investigated his own: he's still allowed to touch her.

It buoys him through the rest of the day. The good mood must have been rolling off of him in waves because when he sees her again that evening, couched between Naruto and a lazing Sai in Ichiraku's only booth, he's invited to sit with them and three pairs of gleaming white teeth shine under the heavy yellow lights.

"Something good happen, sensei?' Naruto asks, his blonde hair the second brightest thing Kakashi has noticed in months; the top spot still occupied by the vision of Sakura's eyes by the gate.

"More like something bad _didn't_ happen," he replies, expression hidden beneath the thick blackness of his winter mask. Really, Naruto's bright locks are shining more fiercely than anything the sun has produced in weeks, and he has to close his eye briefly against the potent glare. He sends a flicker of a look towards the amulet hanging from around his student's neck for confirmation; of course Hinata would be as skilled a weaver of lover's charms as she was a tracker of enemies. It's made of valerian, the life-giving plant, and is woven into a hypnotic Uzumaki spiral to bring health and happiness in one fearsome package. He realises he's still staring at it when Sai pipes up.

"I really am sorry, Ugly." Miracles abound: Sai actually does sound sorry. "It's just that I think it's best that I accept Ino's alone, at first. At least - I think that's what I should do?"

They're continuing a conversation from before his arrival and so Kakashi retreats back into silence, content to let the hot steam of ramen warm his chilled face.

"I agree, and of course I understand, Sai." Sakura's voice drifts to him through the background haze of conversation, and the older ninja realises he's watching her speak more than listening to her words. "I wouldn't like to interfere with her first attempt at a lover's charm, so I'll make you something for the summer solstice instead."

Sai and Ino? He feels he truly can't have been paying attention to have missed that revelation.

Sai gives their medic one of his smiles without artifice and turns to Kakashi, cheek propped in one pale hand. "Since you're not making one for me, Sakura-chan, why don't you just make an amulet for Taichou instead? I don't think I saw him with one in the summer, so it's not right to miss two." Ever innocent, the artist doesn't notice the way his dinner companions have gone deathly still, nor how Naruto's chopsticks echo in the quiet as they drop in disbelief against the cheap lacquered wood of the table.

Unperturbed, Sai smiles towards Kakashi, who is staring down into his bowl of slowly congealing noodles with a kind of stern intensity he doesn't usually conjure up outside of the battlefield. " _Did_ anyone make you a charm for the summer?"

Kakashi grits his teeth as he hears Sakura's pulse increasing. "Mah…" he coughs.

It's impossible to pull off his trademark nonchalance and he can tell she resents it. "I can't recall…"

No. He knows as well as she does that Kakashi does not have anyone else to make him the required charms and amulets and little luck-bringers that colour their daily lives. It's part of their whole problem.

"Well, I'm already making one for Naruto," Sakura forces out with a shrug. "What's the harm in another?"

The harm, Kakashi thinks as he meets her bared teeth and angry blush with a carefully bland expression, could be very great indeed.

* * *

The next time they meet he's staring directly into the sun, hunched over in his usual seat in the cafeteria. If she notices the wide berth the other occupants have given him she doesn't comment on it, simply sits herself down in front of the window so that he can no longer burn the image of the hazy orb into the back of his brain.

"Do you want bad eyesight in both eyes?" Sakura comments, and it is lighthearted enough, _normal_ enough, that he pauses in his slow readjustment to sunless vision to focus his gaze on her face.

"I'm cleansing," he offers like it's not nonsense.

A snort. "And what sight was so terrible that you need to raze it from your mind by setting your coronea alight?"

 _You. Your face when you realised you'd been cornered into doing something for me. Me. My face as I'm sure it looked_ _the day you left, and the day you came back._ He doesn't say anything out loud, just blinks until the hot ache in his eye spills over into uncontrollable wetness.

There's a tut, and a sound like silk sliding over metal, and then Sakura's palm is pressed against the curve of his eye with her hand wreathed in cool chakra. He feels like dying before the first whisper of her energy comes within an inch of his face.

"Are you alright?" She whispers, and he knows she's not talking about his sight.

"Not really," he whispers back weakly, pulling away and placing his head on the table between folded arms. "Sorry, can you go?"

There's a pause. "I- I wanted to tell you that I haven't been listening to any of the rumours."

He breathes out a laugh, head still cradled in the protective circle of his arms. "Pakkun informs me that you should."

" _Pakkun_ does?" Kakashi can almost hear the gears in her intelligent mind working. "Kakashi-" Sakura's voice is quieter still. "How many campfire breakfasts have you had this year?"

She's good, but then of course she is. If anyone apart from Team 7 wanted to know how many missions he'd taken they'd ask him outright and he could just as blatantly lie, or they'd divide the time into neatly packaged segments that he could twist and turn as he pleased. There were five people alive - no, four, he corrected himself - who knew that Kakashi's missions were measured in the ashes of the flames he so carefully nurtured in the field.

"Over three hundred and forty."

"Three hundred and forty…" Sakura repeats, counting. "That's... two days off per month."

"What can I say?" Kakashi replies. "I'm showing my age."

"Who approved this?" Her voice is flat, showing her anger. But it's not at him, not yet, and though every fibre of his being is telling him to get up and run away from her and her anger and the fury when she inevitably turns to him, Kakashi knows he cannot, could never, run away from Sakura.

"If I ever become a missing nin," he says idly, avoiding her question, "they should send you after me."

That silences her long enough for him to pick up his empty tray and take it to the counter. It's not running away if he's simply finished his lunch, and the older shinobi jams his hands into his pockets to make sure his _strategic retreat_ cannot be called a hasty evacuation.

He's contemplating whether there's enough time to grab a cup of tea before Sakura snaps out of the confusion he's left her in when the whispers around the cafeteria finally filter through his consciousness. They'd been completely ignored until he separated himself from her presence, because as usual, when he's faced with her there's nothing in his world except how Haruno Sakura looks at Hatake Kakashi and how much he can get away with looking at her. He pauses in front of the drinks dispenser, eye still trained on her unmoving form while the beady eyes of the vultures in the cafeteria flicker between them.

The murmured words are harsh.

" _\- a disgrace, has she really so little shame?"_

" _... reducing our brightest and best to misery…"_

" _-driven him half to death"_

" _Just shows up again-"_

" _-obsession?"_

Kakashi's hands tighten into fists in his pockets at the way Sakura's back is gradually stiffening. It's bad; he had forgotten how highly the general ninja populace of the village regarded him. A stalwart, Tsunade had said once, someone of ordinary mortal prowess to look up to in their era of gods become men.

No wonder the people of Konoha hated the woman who had brought him to his knees.

The tea pours noisily into the cup behind him and it's as though a spell has broken. The whispers fade out of his attention and again the only person in the room that holds his focus is her. It's a tense situation and for once all the power is in his hands. If he walked out now, surely the crowd would turn on her, left there alone after driving him off.

Kakashi's lone grey eye slides shut. Right now the cafeteria is as much a battlefield as any he has ever fought on, and he could no sooner leave a comrade behind here than in the midst of enemy fighters. This, he thinks, is probably more dangerous.

She starts when he drops back into his seat before her, the tea sloshing precariously in the thin paper cup. It's far too hot and he's picked it up without the protective holder but the searing heat is nothing compared to the pang in his chest at the spiky wetness outlining her vivid green eyes.

"So tell me," he starts. "How exactly does one go around burning their coronea?"

He thinks he's found his answer as her shaky smile paints itself indelibly into his mind.

* * *

It's late. She's at his front door and it's so similar to how she appeared last year that he almost closes it again, but then the sharp tang of blood assaults his nostrils and he suddenly hauls her forward by her shoulder.

"What happened?" Kakashi feels his throat closing up in something like panic at the shabby bundle of fur in her arms. Guruko had always been the most impulsive of his dogs.

Sakura is pushing past him into his dark apartment, ignoring the ineffectual way he's plucking at the motionless shape in her arms. "Get me some light," she orders, moving with unerring accuracy to the kitchen at the back of his house. She's been here before (probably more than anyone else alive) and her projected sense of calm worms its way into his panic, soothing him.

He's usually too unconscious to see her legendary medic mode in action but right now he's immensely grateful for it as she gently lowers the biscuit-coloured dog to the kitchen table, stripping off her bloodied jacket and reaching to peel off her gloves.

" _Light,_ Kakashi," she barks, and he flicks on a switch to reveal the scene in all its bloody glory. Guruko looks dead but the ninja can tell he's not - not yet - and then suddenly he's all action, setting the kettle to bring Sakura clean boiled water and piling towels by her side. His Sharingan eye whirls crazily as he watches her pull a syringe from her pouch along with some foul-smelling herbs he recognises as _papaver somniferum_ : the opium poppy, the strongest narcotic. His small partner must be in pain if that's where she is beginning.

"What do you need me to do?" His voice still holds panic but he'll be damned if one of the boys dies on his watch. She blinks at him, momentarily distracted from her intense focus, and Kakashi realises that with the late hour he'd been lazing maskless around the house. "Should I get an Inuzuka?"

Sakura shakes her head, hands never ceasing in their preparations. "No need." The cool blaze of her chakra lights the shadows of the room and Kakashi can see its reflection in the eyes under the counters, under the chair - it's the rest of the pack. "I trained on dogs," she explains, occupied with arranging the opium pods around Guruko's still head, the thick sap oozing into the wounds with gentle coaxing. "Besides, he's one of my own, and I _always_ heal my own."

Her expression is strangely intense as she gets to work.

It takes no more than ten minutes before she ceases in her healing and starts to carefully wash the matted blood from Guruko's brown fur. Kakashi pushes away from the counter as soon as the glow disappears from her hands, moving her unprotesting body out of the way as he washes the ninken on the table with infinitely patient gestures. He's smoothing the ruffled coat with a subtly shaking hand when he repeats, "what happened?"

Heaving a sigh, Sakura washes her hands in the sink before taking the bloodied cloth from his hands, replacing it with a fresh one. The kettle is whistling and Kakashi realises with a start that she's been cleaning around him for some time. There's no trace of the impromptu surgery but he can still feel the intense gaze of the dogs from their positions around the room, as eager to hear the answer as he is.

"I don't know." She is not telling the truth.

"Tell me." It's not a suggestion and he knows she can hear the command in his voice. Despite the year and the awkwardness that has stretched between them, Sakura is still one of the few people who understands the complex bonds he shares with the dogs. In matters that concern the ninken Kakashi has to take charge, has to act like the alpha he is, and that overrides any of the foolishness - so Pakkun named it - that arises between humans.

But Sakura isn't part of the pack, not really, and so she murmurs, "...I'm not sure if I should."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want you to get into trouble."

"I see." He levels a stare at her, the first properly penetrating one he has given her since she left the village, and feels satisfaction as the kunoichi begins to squirm nervously under the weight of his gaze.

"Just- I'll tell you, but you need to promise not to-"

"Did someone hurt him, Sakura?" Kakashi had been too panicked when they arrived to take stock of the injuries, but now that he thinks about it the deep gouges in Guruko's sides had looked too clean to be an accident.

There's a low growl from underneath the table, and Sakura visibly flinches when Bull separates himself from the shadows to stand in front of her. Kakashi snaps his fingers and the mastiff pulls away, reluctantly, taking up his standard position just slightly to behind and to the left of the ninja.

There's a sudden salty scent in the air and his eyes snap back to her as she tries to hold back her tears. "I- I'm so sorry." Brushing a hand impatiently across her eyes she looks up into the light before continuing, "it was my fault. I- I was walking home when these two idiots decided to start on me. Guruko saw them and-" she stops, gesturing towards the now peacefully slumbering animal.

Ah. Kakashi suddenly understands, because while Guruko is impulsive he's also highly protective of the people he considers family, and Team 7 definitely qualify in the little dog's eyes. Still. "Who attacks a ninken with kunai?" The ninja muses, shaking his head.

"Two overconfident chuunin who are now unconscious in the snow," Sakura replies. "I really am sorry, Kakashi, but he was just so fast that there was nothing I could do-"

"He won?" The voice comes from under the sink and both ninja turn to look at the frowning face that peers from behind the cabinet door.

"I suppose he did, Bisuke," she agrees before holding out a hand tentatively, as though uncertain of the dog's reaction. When the blonde mongrel trails a wet tongue across her fingers Sakura is too busy looking pleased to be disgusted with the drool; in that moment the rest of the panic that had gripped Kakashi leaves him in a rush and he laughs into the quiet kitchen, dispelling the tension.

"That's good," the shinobi says with just a hint of a smile, "but are you telling me you've left two ninja bleeding out in the cold?"

Her glare is far too amused to be serious as she replies, "oh, don't pretend you care, and that you're not going to grill me on who they are." At his unrepentant shrug she shakes her head, laughing herself, before turning to open the cupboard door and pulling out two mugs - the two they always used - and filling them with the hot water that hadn't been used to clean Guruko. She reaches a hand into her pouch and pops a few leaves into each cup before thrusting one at him.

"Mint, for your head," she says, almost shyly. "I always take some after a procedure."

His thanks is lost in the sudden emergence of his dogs from their hiding places in the kitchen, clambering over themselves to get closer to Sakura or himself for a pat or a scratch under the chin, and all at once it is as though the last year hadn't happened, and they were still Kakashi and Sakura, friends and comrades and family - nothing more, but certainly nothing less.

When she leaves an hour later, striding out into the cold dark night with a smile and a promise to bring him a charm for the battered little warrior still sleeping on his chest, Kakashi can't keep the smile from his face, and it only widens when he feels the weight on his vest shift drowsily.

"Boss?" Guruko says hazily, and Kakashi places a comforting hand on his head, smoothing a finger over the prominent whiskers that tickle under his chin. Ninken aren't pets to be coddled, but he'll make an exception this once.

"Extra biscuits for a month, Guruko," he whispers, feeling the muzzle underneath his palm curve upwards in a smile.

* * *

The charm is a few days in coming and when Kakashi doesn't see Sakura around the village he has to convince himself she hasn't run away from him again. It is the busiest time of year for medics - peak fitness and ninja skills bowing before the common cold - and he supposes she's in high demand after her sojourn around the continent.

Still, he chides himself on getting his hopes up when a run-in with Naruto reveals she kept the pair's weekly ramen date without interruption. Of course she would put him lower on the priority list than before, charm or no charm, and it is all Kakashi can do not to send her a note telling her to forget about it. That would be churlish, let alone revealing that he expected more from her, and that was the last mistake he wanted to repeat with the kunoichi.

He cannot help but weave his way through the short days in a fugue, so much so that he misses the approach of Midwinter and is shocked to open his door to the crowds milling around the streets outside his home. His apartment - built on old Hatake land, making him a reluctant landlord - borders a forest known for its hawthorne groves; the villagers must be on the hunt for flora to use in their wreaths.

Sakura's pink hair stands out amongst the swaddled mass of people: she still isn't wearing a hat or gloves, and for the first time since she graced Konoha once more with her presence the ninja looks pleased to see him.

"Perfect!" She exclaims, pushing her way through the busy crowds to reach his side. "You're just in time."

He raises his eyebrow expectantly.

"I need your permission to go into the woods behind your house," her explanation is breathed out as she hauls him down towards the lane that leads to the forest, "because I think every other tree in Konoha has been plucked bare."

Sakura's face is screwed up in a moue of frustration and Kakashi keeps his smile to himself, letting her drag him along without complaint. Though it was for her own convenience he's still unreasonably happy that she was thinking of seeking him out, and this warms him enough that he ignores the glances she shoots him from the corner of her eyes.

They pause while Kakashi unlocks the small gate separating the apartment grounds from the Hatake forest, a small gathering of trees and brush that would be more suited to being labelled as a copse. He had always thought his forebears had grander ideas than their reality, but right now Kakashi feels like the owner of the best land in the Fire Country at the way Sakura's green eyes light up at the sight of the untouched shrub.

His companion wastes no time in gathering strong hawthorne branches and holly boughs, expertly twining them together in a rudimentary circle before beginning a complex weaving pattern with the individual twigs and leaves of the plants. It's women's tradition and the shinobi feels a little like a spy, but she continues unperturbed so the actions cannot be secret.

"Can I help?" He offers hesitantly.

"If you could find me some _hellebores_ I would be very grateful- though I doubt there'll be any, there's too much shade here…" distracted, Sakura waves a hand in his direction, leaving him to hunt on hands and knees for the elusive white flowers. They work in companionable silence for a time, falling back into the easy atmosphere they'd enjoyed in earlier years when their friendship was less complicated.

Kakashi begins to feel content before the feeling is made cold in his chest with Sakura's sudden words into the quiet.

"Kakashi…" she begins, and the way she looks over her shoulder, not quite meeting his gaze, has his hands fisting anxiously in the dirt. When she doesn't say anything else he clears his throat a few times before answering, "yes?"

"I-" her gaze drops to the ground. "I was hoping we could- um, talk. About- about everything that happened."

He exhales heavily, hands clutching at the frozen dirt for purchase as his world spins around him. "You want to talk." His voice is level but it's only a matter of time before it breaks, and so he stands up suddenly, his abrupt action causing his companion to fall backwards onto her rump. She scrambles away from him and Kakashi closes his eye against the hesitant fear he can read on her face.

"Well I think I said everything I need to say," he continues, voice cracking on the last note. Thrusting the handful of white flowers he had collected in her general direction, the ninja makes to leave the quiet copse when Sakura stands, her work scattering heedlessly at her feet.

"Wait, please." It's not a command but it might as well be for all his ability to resist. Reluctantly, the jounin pauses at the gate, furiously avoiding the way Sakura is looking searchingly into his face. "I really think we should talk this out."

The metal groans under his crushing grip, but he can't ignore her request and so Kakashi drops his head in defeat. He should never have walked the dogs that day she returned; should have declined joining Team 7 for dinner and should have left her in the cafeteria to the mercies of the ninja populace. Saving Guruko's life he could accept as a necessary evil but in all other cases Kakashi knows with sudden clarity that every interaction he has with her will slowly drive him insane.

Thinking back to the bitter memory of their last conversation in the depths of last winter, Kakashi nods in unwilling acquiescence. "Alright, let's talk."

Even with his back turned Kakashi can perfectly picture the hesitant relief on Sakura's face and he can't help but bare his teeth in a humourless response. "So do you want me to embarrass myself again, or did your year of wandering give you another way of repudiating everything I am?"

It's a hollow victory as her teeth snap shut on her carefully rehearsed words. "Let's... just start from the very beginning."

* * *

 **AN:** I have another 4-5k words mostly finished on this but I wanted to get it out on Christmas - so it's now a twoshot! The rest will likely be up sometime this week unless I'm too busy with whisky and/or cheese.

I love angsty, slightly mad Kakashi so much.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN:** Well this only took me eleven months. I have no excuses.

* * *

 _He'd been ignoring the sounds of revelry outside for an hour or more when the relentless banging on his door resolved into a steady demand for attention. It was too purposeful for a passerby and he'd sworn off attending the festival with his gaggle of tenants, which left only a handful of possibilities as to the visitor's identity. Tsunade was likely to be too deep in her cups to be organising missions and Kakashi knew for a fact that Naruto was celebrating the feast in Suna this year, leaving him with a sneaking suspicion that Tenzou had taken pity on his lonely self and had appeared to coax him into a night of drunkenness and standing around in the cold._

 _Kakashi sighed, pushing himself up from his chair to plod towards the entranceway. Midwinter was never his favourite celebration - searing hot drinks in the dead of winter did little to rouse his interest - but it was one of the mainstays of the Konoha calendar and as such he reckoned the villagers had put in a request for his inexplicably popular appearance. He opened the door with an unenthusiastic flourish, ready for a final attempt at refusal when the sight of a warmly-dressed Sakura chased the polite demur from his head._

" _Y-yes?" He hated how hesitant he sounded. She didn't appear to notice._

" _Kakashi!" Her voice held the warmth of a few liquors and he wondered how long she'd been sampling the heady spruce mead of the festival. "I knew I'd find you here - I need you!"_

 _Feeling the blush spread over his cheeks, the older ninja cautioned himself on reading too much into her undoubtedly innocent words. "What's up?" he enquired instead. "Weren't you with celebrating with Ino tonight?"_

 _Slightly discomfited at his inability to sense her outside the door, the jounin waited for his companion's response, but none was forthcoming._

 _Eventually, Sakura grimaced - he couldn't quite place why - before launching a surprisingly quick hand towards his wrist, capturing him before he could presumably close the door in her face. Kakashi knew he never would, but if she still considered it a possibility then the game wasn't quite up yet._

" _Just come to the festival, you silly creature." She blinked at him. "Though I can't remember if you like the cold or not."_

 _He raised an eyebrow at her. Of course she knew. The grimace resolved into a grin that gave her away._

" _It_ is _pretty cold tonight," she continued, "but you'll just have to put up with it. For me?"_

 _A killer line. Of course he'd go. For her. There wasn't much he wouldn't do if Sakura wanted to claim the action for herself._

" _Fine, I'll come along. Just - give me a few to get ready. Can you wait here?"_

" _In the entrance? No way. What kind of ninja do you think I am, Kakashi?" Sakura's laugh was warm despite her rebuke. "I can practically hear your I-want-to-run-away thoughts from here."_

" _I do_ _ **not**_ _want to run away," he denied hotly, peeling her unresisting fingers from his wrist._

" _Whatever, just let me in while you get ready. And don't take longer than it takes me to throw out all the out of date food in your fridge!"_

" _You know I need to get prettied up to go out."_

 _Her flat look let him know the joke wasn't appreciated._

 _Heaving a sigh that he hoped sounded convincingly reluctant, the jounin let her squeeze past before closing the door on the outside world. Her warm body pressed against his for the merest hint of a second, and for a moment he thought about asking her if she'd like to celebrate Midwinter here, alone, just the two of them - but it fled before he could even put it into words in his head._

 _Madness. Shoving his feet into warm standard-issue winter boots, Kakashi listened to her pottering about in his kitchen as he tried to cram on as many layers on he could, because even his high temperature when it came to Sakura couldn't keep him warm in such freezing weather._

" _Ready?" The kunoichi in his thoughts popped her head around the doorway to his hall, holding back a snort at the sight of him in his furs. "Oh, really, it's not that bad. I'm not walking around the festival with the fabled snow beast of Konohagakure."_

 _So they were walking around together? Kakashi hid a smile beneath his mask. Maybe that thought could keep him just a little warm._

 _Rolling her eyes at his expression, Sakura once again pushed past him, throwing open the door and letting in a blast of snowy air. With her very best please-do-what-I-tell you smile, she tossed the fateful question over her shoulder._

" _Coming?"_

* * *

She's still fiddling with the flowers when he turns around. "Start from the beginning?" he repeats humorlessly. "I don't think so. We've lived that."

Kakashi runs a jerky hand through his pale hair, the disarray causing some of the shorter strands to fall forward and cover his eye. He stares at her through the silvery curtain it creates; she doesn't look quite real like this and it helps. A little.

"I want to start at the middle. Or maybe the end," he continues. "Where have you been? You were so late."

"I-" Sakura's voice falters and she looks down at the slowly crumpling _hellebores_. "I'm -"

"If that's an apology, I don't want to hear it."

"I wasn't _going_ to apologise." Her temper is rousing: he can hear it in the way she bites off her words and it's good, because an angry Sakura isn't a devious Sakura and he can twist their conversation any way he wishes. "I don't think I need to apologise for going on a vital mission to save lives in the south."

"In the south, sure." He leans against the cold metal of the fence, the bite of freezing steel a welcome brand against the back of his arms. "That was a vital mission. I'd never say anything against that except for you maybe should have taken an escort. But", he holds up a finger, stalling her protest, "that mission ended shortly after Midsummer. It's now the year's end."

The look on her face comes very close to breaking his resolve but Kakashi knows if he stops here she'll say her piece and she'll regain control of the situation and she'll leave him in pieces. Again.

"I know you didn't want me to, Sakura- _chan,_ but I waited for you, you know." He sighs deeply, letting the silver tinge of his hair cloud his vision. The diminutive is deliberate and he watches as she frowns in distaste.

"I've heard." Her tone is icy, flowers finally crushing uselessly in her hands as she stands up. "Kakashi, everyone is telling me - to my face or behind my back - that I might as well have crippled you."

"I guess you could frame it like that."

"You _expected_ \- there was - a lot of pressure on me..."she falters, but the anger is still there.

"So you ran away for a year?"

"I'd have run away for longer if Tsunade had let me." There's a bite behind her bark and Sakura almost sounds defensive. That's good. Or bad. It depends on the shifting expression behind her eyes, and he's not sure.

She sighs. He does too, and there's a half-second, nearly missed, where they could burst out laughing, mad as it would be, and put the mess behind them. His lips draw back over sharp canines and the forced chuckle is nearly out of his throat before Kakashi pulls back from the edge. This is uncomfortable, murderously so, but it's necessary, he thinks. If he laughs and she does too then they would no doubt continue to circle the discomfort, and he'd go back to spending his days in a haze of grey with dreams of pink. Sakura is his poison and Kakashi is sure that if he doesn't lance the venom in him then he'll rot away before the spring sun comes.

So he chokes back the laughter and watches her watching him. A thought creeps up, insidious. "I put pressure on you?" he murmurs. That's an angle he hasn't contemplated.

"Oh… not you, well, not as such. At first." There's a frown tugging at the corners of her mouth but still Sakura does not look cold.

The frozen forests of the Snow Country have clearly tempered her willpower and the shinobi in him - the killing presence that lurks always under a civilised surface - notes that of course Sakura chose to run away only to come back stronger. "But we're not talking about the beginning, are we? You want to know about the middle, and the end."

He nods. She sits back on her haunches and spills the secrets of her eight thousand hours.

* * *

 _It was so late it was light again; he couldn't quite tell whether he was man or tree thanks to the volume of spruce mead they'd consumed, and though his arms hurt from steadying Sakura's inert frame across his back Kakashi wouldn't pass her off to anyone. Eventually, people stopped asking._

 _A night of revelry that hung precariously close to debauchery. The standard celebrations blurring into one another, smiles just a little too broad to be civilised. And somehow they'd managed to get so plastered that he couldn't even find his way home, a feat previously only outranked by the time he forgot Pakkun's name._

" _Kakashi…" her voice was a wet rumble on the back of his neck. "Are you going home?"_

" _I'm trying to," he grumbled in response._

 _There was a pause._

" _Really?"_

" _Yes, really."_

 _The scent of heavy winter greens hung in his nostrils, cutting through the heady scent of the alcohol of the evening. It was a weight on his senses, almost as present as the weight of the woman on his back and her charm around his neck. She'd presented it to him with much fanfare somewhere between the eighth cup of mead and the first time he'd had to lie down, and he couldn't tear his eyes from it. Except to look at her. For a Midwinter weave of protection it looked awfully like a lovers charm, snarled branches knotted together in something he could almost read to be a declaration. But there was doubt in the handicraft; it looked torn, indecisive, and he has enough experience to know Sakura's touch is surer, better than that._

 _He felt too drunk to care._

" _Kakashi?" This time he could feel her eyelashes blink blearily onto his nape. Feathered torture._

" _Mm?"_

" _This is completely the wrong direction."_

 _He took in their location a little better. Definitely not Konohagakure proper: there were no dancing festival lights hanging from the trees here, just the drip drip drip of winter dew as it shivered to bring in the day._

" _Ah."_

 _Sakura slid off of his back and if he wasn't barely standing himself Kakashi would chide her graceless descent. Instead he stayed silent, the feel of her warm frame on his back enough to cut through the heady taste of mead in his mouth._

" _Do you think this counts as a campfire breakfast?" he asked, and it was random, maybe even nonsensical, except for the fact that Sakura understood._

" _Well...are you planning to eat?"_

 _He might not know where he lived but there wasn't enough mead in the world to make him answer that._

 _Sakura didn't seem to care. Swaying with the fluid gait that only the drunkest could achieve, she moved to stand against a welcoming pine, smiling at him all the while. They were in the very oldest part of the forest, it came to him, with the silent presence of ancient trees the only listeners to a conversation that hovered on the edge of danger. He didn't dare look into her eyes._

" _Have you ever thought about walking into the forest and never walking back out?" She always was a melancholy drunk._

" _All the time." So was he._

 _They stayed like that a moment longer as the light of the lengthening day began to brighten around them. Two, three times, Sakura opened her mouth to speak before closing it soundlessly. He didn't interrupt. And when she opened her arms with a gesture that could only mean one thing, Kakashi stepped into them as though he would never return._

* * *

"It was too much for me, Kakashi." The roaring in his ears doesn't subside at her confession. Sakura's had almost four hundred sunsets to think about what to say but at this moment he doesn't want to hear it.

"You're telling me you knew?"

"That you loved me? I knew all along, Kakashi. Even… at the festival." She stands and he sees her hands haven't been idle as she spins the tale of her year to his unwilling ears. "How could I not? It's all anyone would talk to me about. The golden girl of Konoha and the city's silent protector. How wonderful it would be if I gave you everything you wanted. I felt like I was drowning."

Wordlessly, Sakura extends a hand to him, reaching for the basket to drop her gathered flora, but when Kakashi cringes away she drops it back to her side and looks as hurt as he's ever seen her. He feels triumphant, then ashamed.

"Was it pity?" It's not the most burning question but he needs to ask it. "That night?"

"No!" Genuine shock. "No, it wasn't pity. I don't know what it was. Mead?" She pauses, looks down to check the ground, and he finally pushes away from the gate to follow her further into his copse. "I don't know what it was, but if it destroyed you then it was a mistake."

"I'm stronger than that, Sakura."

"Are you?" She doesn't sound convinced.

"Maybe now."

"Now?" She thinks she's getting somewhere; he can see the reluctant curiosity in her gaze.

"Now that you're back, and I can see that you're only human." At the surprised opening and closing of her chapped lips Kakashi has to fight back a smile that he knows she'll see; it isn't the right moment for that, not yet. They work in silence for a few moments as she tosses roots and berries that he has no name for into her wicker basket and he scratches for little white flowers in the dirt.

"I didn't know the village pressured you so," he continues.

"You've never been aware of their idolisation."

"That's true. Is it the reason you…" he doesn't know how to frame it. _Abandoned me? Ran away from me?_ They sound possessive while he owns nothing of her.

"Yes, and no." She's finished; he can see it in the decisive way she rises to her feet, basket in hand. Haruno Sakura has everything she needs from Hatake Kakashi and he's worried she'll turn away and leave now that she's said what she needed to say.

"I'm sorry if I scared you," he blurts. Anything to keep her here until he hears it all, though the apology is bitter as it leaves his lips. He doesn't apologise often.

"No, you aren't. You don't understand how I felt, do you? Why I reacted like that?"

Kakashi thinks back to the fifth worst morning of his life. "I...I didn't." Thinks about what she'd just told him, of the pressure and the expectations of two generations, pushing her into his arms from behind the scenes.

His reply is more honest than she bargains for; it's clearly written in her surprise.

"But I want to understand."

* * *

 _Kakashi had almost resigned himself to believing the previous day's actions were a moment of madness. The kind of emotional outburst before a long mission, before the chance that the next time a ninja passed through the gates they'd be passing through dead. He knew Sakura had a vital tour of the south to undertake; that would never usually bother him. Duty before everything else._

 _Only this time, it was threatening to. So he did the right thing, stayed cooped up in his apartment, ignored his dogs and his colleagues and everything but the imperative summons that would eventually bring him to work. He'd see her off at the gates, if not with a smile, then with nothing more than his usual attitude. Maybe he'd even make a joke about counting sunsets. Maybe not._

 _Then a knock sounded at his door and Kakashi knew that if he answered he'd fall further into depravity._

 _He opened the door anyway._

" _Um-" Sakura was never very good at confrontation, not when it really mattered. Whatever she'd been preparing to say fell unspoken between them. "Can I come in?"_

" _Are you sure?" A last attempt at sanity._

 _She shot him a look. "I want to come in."_

" _I'm worried I'll never let you leave," Kakashi breathed, even as his arm grasped hold of hers and drew her into the warmth of his apartment._

" _Yeah, me too," she replied, and he'd spend hours thinking on what that meant, but for now she was here, and it was too much to resist._

 _He kissed her like he'd rarely kissed before, this time no mead on their tongues to slur and to slow what was bubbling between them. He kissed her until she was gasping for breath and then some, until her hands - so strong and sure - curled into his shoulders to hold herself upright._

 _There wasn't time to speak after that. She'd be leaving after the first morning rush, and now that the temptation had brought itself to him Kakashi wouldn't dare let her go until the very last moment._

 _Still. He tried: "I need to tell you-"_

 _She silenced him with a hot hand over his mouth and he kissed it, unthinking. "I don't want to hear it, Kakashi." There was a trace of sadness in her eyes. "I don't think I can."_

" _But you don't kn-"_

 _And then she moved on him in an irresistible way, and the shinobi at his core congratulated Kakashi on finally, for once, succumbing to temptation in the pursuit of a goal._

 _He didn't try to talk to her after that. Instead he clung to a short-lived passion, one that ended too quickly. Or maybe it hadn't even truly started, but as he watched Sakura pull her clothes back on with a calmness he was sure she did not possess, he found he couldn't read her at all._

 _There was a moment of disbelief where Kakashi thought she might just leave without saying anything, but then Sakura - always, always too kind Sakura - turned towards where he still lay in his bed._

" _I'm leaving." A short nod, a lingering hand on the back of his worn dining chair. A heartbeat that had started to slow, speeding up once again._

" _Should I come see you off?"_

 _She blinked, hesitation clear in the green. "I-" It sounded like an apology, not quite a refusal. "I think we've already said everything we need to say."_

 _Kakashi barks a harsh laugh as she goes to unlatch his door. "But you didn't let me say anything at all."_

 _Again, he can't read her. Ever so open Sakura is closed to him, a flower that draws in its thorns after the fatal strike. It was not the look he would remember for the next six, twelve months - that would always be her passionate but straight stare, even in the heat of things - but it would haunt him._

" _Goodbye." The door closed softly, as though she was never there._

 _His head fell back onto the pillow before he could think about feeling left behind._

* * *

It's three weeks before he sees her again, but the spectre of duty holds Kakashi close to her chest and the long missions of midwinter stave away the chill Sakura has left behind. He takes everything. Anything. And after Tsunade spends four hours lecturing him on the importance of equal opportunity for the _rest_ of the ninja population, he dials it back. He sticks to the things that get sent his way; it's still enough to keep thoughts of her away at night.

Of course, two seconds after she slides into a seat across from him at the ramen stand, it's blown out of the window.

"I've finished Guruko's charm," she says, and Kakashi almost laughs at the way Naruto tries to look both uninterested and as though he can't hear her. Admirably, it still doesn't stop the ceaseless flow of ramen into his cheeks. "How is he?"

"Better." Kakashi pauses. "Vengeful. I've had to pull him off three separate chuunin this week alone."

Sakura laughs. It's real.

"He still won't tell me exactly what happened."

"You won't get it from me. I'm keeping his secrets."

"Too bad he didn't keep yours," he retorts. When she flashes him a variant of her trademark glare, the shinobi can forget - almost - the conversation of their last meeting. How she'd told him, in depth, about the kinds of things people said to her, all the time.

Kakashi understands, now. Sakura is a shinobi in his own image; less bloody, yes, but still bound by deep deep duty to the village that created her. Told a hundred, thousand times that she should be the one to help him, heal him. Said with conviction after their failure to save Sasuke. More so when she found herself thrust into his company time and again only to find herself enjoying it.

No wonder she'd fled to the very top of the world. He's just amazed she didn't throw herself off.

She's still glaring as Sai places the drinks down in front of them, and Kakashi relents. There's a cautious balance to their interactions these days, and he's keen to make sure it never again swings towards antagonistic.

"Of course he did, Sakura-chan," he admits. "Guruko's just as loyal to you as the rest of us are."

It's an implication that Kakashi didn't mean to make, but neither Sai nor Naruto pick up on the underneath the underneath. Sakura does.

There's a heavy pause.

"Good."

Her smile is as brittle as the ice of her year. But it's there. And Kakashi realises, as they sit together in the booth unofficially claimed by their team on every visit to Naruto's sacred ground, that he doesn't want anyone to jeopardise what they have again - village wishes or not. Expectations be damned.

Sakura's silent while they drink, content to listen to Naruto's chatter and Sai's dry comments, while Kakashi leans his head back and lets their camaraderie wash over him, diluting the heavy feeling of mission weariness in his chest.

"When can I come drop it off?" Her question pierces his contented haze with the precision of a well-thrown kunai. "The charm."

Kakashi lifts his head up slowly, slowly, giving himself time to smooth his surprised expression into blandness.

"I can give it to him, if you want." _Save you coming back to the dog's den._

"I want to check up on how he's doing," she replies firmly, leaving him no room to refuse.

"I could bring-"

"I'm coming round, Kakashi." There's a heavy pause as Sai and Naruto tune into their teammate's talk, picking up on the way Sakura's voice has turned to pure steel.

"Ah…" he clears his throat, unable to keep the stutter from his voice. "After this, if that suits?"

"Alright," she replies easily, all trace of fire gone now that she's in command of the situation. "Just let me finish this, then I'll go back to get it."

Kakashi nods once. Twice. And then drops his head back against the vinyl of the seat before allowing himself a very slow, deliberate blink.

He feels uncomfortably like a prey animal waiting for the hunter to strike.

* * *

" _Sakura."_

 _His voice cut through the general chatter that surrounded the kunoichi as she stood at the gates. Even as he opened his mouth, part of him tensed up at the words bubbling in his mind. Stop, stop - there was nothing to be gained from this._

 _Ino heard him first, and turned to him with her powder-pale eyes searching his face. Sakura followed a beat later, pink eyebrows climbing in surprise, or agitation, as Kakashi stared intensely into her gaze._

" _Kakashi," she replied cautiously. "Sensei."_

 _And there it was: the not-so-subtle warning, the reaffirmation of the old relationship, before-_

" _Are you leaving now?" He ignored her heavy stare._

 _She nodded slowly, hand reaching self-consciously to her hitae-ate in a gesture he has been familiar with since she was a genin. Most of the rest of her class were there to see her off; Sakura was always popular, even more so now that she was free from the spectre of the last Uchiha. She must be cursed, Kakashi thought abruptly. Now she was stuck with his infinitely longer shadow instead._

" _Yes… I was just saying my goodbyes," Sakura answered, needlessly sweeping an arm vaguely at the crowd of hospital colleagues, friends, and curious onlookers. There were a lot of those wherever Naruto and Sakura went, these days._

" _Where's my goodbye?" He wanted to pull the words back as soon as he said them but there was a desperation in his throat; a need that he recognised as irrational, but wanted to satisfy anyway. Let no-one ever say Hatake Kakashi was always a mature man._

 _Sakura sucked in a disbelieving breath at the same time as Ino's face sharpened in shock. A murmur ran through the crowd, but he didn't care what they wanted._

" _I... already said goodbye to you, Kakashi."_

" _I want to hear it again."_

" _Why?" She was looking around now, searching for their blonde teammate and his tension-diffusing ways. Unfortunately - for both of them - Naruto was in Suna. And there was nobody else left who was privy to the deepest dynamics of Team 7, not like they were: nobody who knew just the right thing to say to avoid things being said that broke bonds._

" _You know why."_

 _The murmur was louder now, tinged with the excitement of potential gossip. Shinobi are smart, and it doesn't take much heat to stir them into suspicion. The crackling fire simmering under Sakura and Kakashi, a mere foot apart as they stare at each other, is enough kindling to set the onlookers - eavesdroppers - aflame._

" _Kakashi, please-"_

" _Oh, no, Sakura-chan," he cut her off, deliberately using the suffix he reserved for when he was feeling particularly mulish. "I want to hear you say goodbye, here, now, in front of everyone. Maybe this time you'll let me reply."_

 _There was a hand on his arm, but whether it was conciliatory or warning in its touch, he didn't know or care._

 _Sakura shut her eyes, cheeks pink with embarrassment and her ever-present temper. "I…"_

 _Whatever she was going to say was interrupted by a not-so-subtle wolf whistle and Kakashi saw it, witnessed the exact moment Sakura lost it. Her fists clenched and the leather creaked warningly; the ground seemed to shudder with every breath she took. Even Ino stepped away from her._

" _Like I said," her words were clipped acid. "We've already said goodbye. We've already said everything there was to be said."_

" _And when was this?!" An unknown voice shouted, the implication clear in the guilty's saucy tone._

 _They both ignored it. Because finally, sensibly, Kakashi's mind had caught up with his runaway mouth, and he knew, just knew, that by coming here and demanding more of her attention he had blown it. Whatever it was._

 _Hatake men fight to the death._

" _You didn't let me say anything at all," Kakashi repeated, tone almost a whisper but loud enough to be heard through the bustle._

" _Because," Sakura snapped, and her voice was finally dangerous enough that the waiting crowd turns from amusement to trepidation. "I didn't want you to say it. Any of it."_

 _She delivered the final blow with a precision he was almost proud of._

" _I want_ _ **nothing**_ _from you_ _ **,**_ _Kakashi. Sensei."_

 _And with that, she was gone, and all the colours of the world with her._

* * *

Kakashi can tell Pakkun's bothered by his pacing, but he ignores the pug in favour of tracing the same worried crease into the floor over and over again.

"Sakura's coming round," he offers as explanation.

"And?" Pakkun has always been selective about what he understood.

"She's going to come check on Guruko."

The dog in question lifts his head from its perch on his pale paws. "That's nice!" he half-yawns.

"And I need to not go crazy, Pakkun." Kakashi says seriously. "Now that you've filled me in on the disaster that has been my last year, I need you to stop me from going crazy."

Pakkun stands and lopes towards the living room, thick claws clacking loudly against the wood of the floor. "You know I don't do the whole 'oh humans, we're so awkward' thing, boss."

There's a sigh from both man and beast.

"I think I might hate this."

"I don't understand why you're making it difficult, Kakashi."

"Yes, you do. You just don't agree with it."

Pakkun's snort tells Kakashi he's correct. Before he can say anything, the doorbell rings, and Kakashi stares at it in the same wide-eyed way he had when Sakura had appeared that fateful morning after the festival.

"There's our cue, everyone." Pakkun's crisp order resounds in the sudden silence of the room. At this, his dogs pick themselves up out of various heaps on the floor.

Kakashi spins. "Wait, what?"

Pakkun levels him with a surprisingly human stare. "We're heading out."

The doorbell goes again, and Kakashi can feel the puzzled pressure Sakura is exerting against the frail bell. She knows he's in.

"You can't!" He says hurriedly, and moves towards the door with a jerkingly reluctant motion.

"You askin', or tellin'?" Bisuke pipes up. Half the pack have already vanished; without a direct order from Kakashi, they often listen to whatever Pakkun decrees.

"Uh…" his hand on the doorknob, Kakashi pauses for just a beat too long. Human subtleties be damned: Kakashi privately thinks dogs are malicious on a level far beyond even his most devious of colleagues.

He opens his door just as the last pop signals they've abandoned him to his fate. There's a moment of disorientation at the fluffy pom pom that arrests his vision - Sakura really is short - before he flicks his gaze down to hers. She looks amused.

"It's finally cold enough," she explains, gesturing to the warm hat nestled atop her head. He nods, feeling stupid.

There's a pause.

"...can I come in?" It's exactly what she said last year, hesitance and all, and it's not lost on either of them, if the blush that dusts her cheeks is any indication. Without the urgency of Guruko's situation between them, Kakashi is utterly aware that this is the first time she's been in his house since…

"Ah, yeah, of course," he mumbles, stepping back with an unnecessarily wide step to allow her in. It's the slight, easy-to-miss glance at him as Sakura snakes past him that reminds him of the fact he's forgotten to pull his mask up. Again.

"I was feeling the cold earlier," Sakura continues, unruffled, depositing her jacket and hat on the hooks he keeps for visitors. "It's different here than in Snow."

"Mm," he agrees, "more of a wet chill than a deep freeze."

It's mundane. But it's very much like the Kakashi-and-Sakura of old, and he relaxes slightly, moving to flick on the kettle as she rummages around in her bag. They spend a few moments in almost companionable silence, before Sakura - of course it's Sakura - breaks the eggshells of their careful space.

"Where's Guruko? Did you tell him I've finished his charm?" She has it in her hands and he can see it now, smiling slightly as he recognises her choices - winter dog rose, the Konoha coneflower, and she's even wheedled her way into obtaining some jasmine. It's the steady, sure handiwork that he knows she's proud of and he's hit by a wave of nostalgia for the days she made him the charms and talismans that helped keep him safe.

"Ah…" there's no point in lying, "they all took off."

"I see."

He thinks she maybe doesn't. Raising a thumb to his mouth to summon the disobedient dog back into this realm, Kakashi is surprised when Sakura's delicate hand shoots out to grab his arm in an implacable grip.

"Actually…" she says, and there's all the hesitance in her tone that precludes a _conversation_ , "call him in a bit. I've got... something to show you."

And there it is. The strike. She'd lured him into a false sense of security and Kakashi is almost mad at the slumbering shinobi soul inside of him. Where was the reluctance to relax? The suspicious drive that kept them all alive? Sakura truly was his lethal drug.

"Alright…" he says reluctantly, moving to sit down in his favourite (protective) armchair. The sight of her pulling an impossibly intricately woven talisman out of her bag sets him speechless. It's made of hawthorne, the trees of his family forest, and instantly he recognises the diamond shape motif the wood loosely follows.

His family crest.

"I've been thinking," Sakura starts, looking down at the talisman with an intense stare. It's big; bigger than any he's seen her make, as big as the one his mother made for his father- "have you heard of The Golden Bough?"

It's a complete non-sequitur. "Huh?"

"The Golden Bough," Sakura repeats, and he catches the huff of breath that ruffles her bangs in exasperation. "The tree of the sacred grove."

Kakashi thinks for a second. The lessons from the academy are a distant memory, now, but there's a vague caress in his mind at the words, a hint of knowledge long-forgotten. "It's the legendary key to the afterlife, right?"

Sakura shakes her head. "Not quite - it's certainly _a_ key to the afterlife, being one of the most poisonous trees known to us. You'd die faster than I could heal if you ate it." She fingers the wood idly as she speaks and he can't draw his eyes away from it. "But no, that's - that's not all."

Kakashi waits, patient now in his wish not to drive her away again. He's had over three hundred sunsets and as many dreary sunrises to think about what he did wrong their last confrontation.

"It's not legendary, either," she explains. "In fact, you can find it in- in the Snow Country."

At this, Kakashi's head jerks up sharply to meet her golden-green gaze. What was happening?

"You've been- been _better_ since I returned. I think. I really think that now we've lanced our poison, we could be friends. Maybe even... but I still-" here Sakura falters, looking down at the magnificent work in her hands for a moment, "but I can't do the whole 'being in love with an immature man' thing. Not again."

The ordinary measures of time mean nothing to Kakashi, so he counts the silence that follows through the twin beats of their anxious hearts. Neither of them move; Sakura's eyes shift between him and the mantelpiece behind him, on which Kakashi abruptly remembers he's displaying the various charms and talismans the people in his life have made him. Including hers: including the fateful messy charm that started - or ended - this all.

"I can see why," he manages. "I meant what I said, by the way. I really do want to understand what happened."

"I know, and that's why I'm here." The bluntness of her speech brings the slightest smile to his face, which she returns, showing a sharp tooth that takes him by surprise. "I know we've had it out over last year, but I want you to know I was embarrassed. _Really_ embarrassed. Pressured too, beyond belief. I heard the rumours and when my replacement came to the South, I was treated to the whole gamut of theories and updates on how miserable you were. How depressed."

There's colour on his cheeks now.

"I _can't_ consider being with someone unstable. It's not fair, to me or to you. I hope you understand that."

Honourable defeat. "Of course I do, Sakura," he says, and he knows she hears the truth in his voice. Moving to continue, Kakashi shuts his mouth with an audible click when she holds up a finger to stall his errant thoughts.

"So I ran away from it all, just for a while," six months is an unusually long while, he thinks, "and I spent a lot of time in Snow thinking. About me, and you, and whether there _was_ something between us."

"And?" There's tremulous hope in his voice and he closes his eyes at the vulnerability of it.

"And there isn't. But there could be, if you will do something for me. Prove something for me."

It's a test. Kakashi's survival instincts finally kick in and he opens his silver gaze on Sakura as she sits primly on his best chair. Promise the world and she'll know he hasn't learned anything- refuse and she'll leave and they'll probably rarely speak again.

"What do you need?" It's neutral. It's the right answer as she replies,

"I need you to leave."

"Leave?" he echoes.

"Konoha. Just for a while; a hundred or so campfire breakfasts. I know Tsunade won't spare you more than that."

He's not so sure.

"Why do you want me to leave? For space?"

"I had all my space in the frozen valleys," Sakura replies mysteriously. "I want you to have that, as well. I need you to think, to spend some time using that genius brain of yours until you're able to understand what you need to bring to- to a relationship."

It's a chance, real and honestly offered, and he dives on it. "I can do that. I want to do that."

"That's not all," she says to his eager acceptance. She holds up the talisman in two hands and now, faced with it square-on, Kakashi can see the deliberate gap in the middle, a smaller diamond that she looks through in a way that would look cheeky if it didn't look devastating. There's something intangible about Sakura staring at him through a hole in his family crest and his heart tightens at it.

"I didn't think you'd be that easy to win," he quips unthinkingly. It goes down better than most of his jokes have recently when she grins at him through the gap.

"Not me," she agrees easily. "I want you to find The Golden Bough. I looked and looked and looked and I couldn't find it."

"And this," she flexes her fingers around the polished hawthorne, "won't be complete until I get the wood to make the centrepiece."

So that was the secret of her lost hours. It hits him, hard. But not hard enough that he forgets- "but wasn't this tree supposed to be extremely poisonous?"

"It wouldn't be a great shinobi romance if there wasn't a little deadly danger."

Kakashi can't agree more. Especially as he instantly recognises her tease as a line from his ultimate Icha Icha novel, the one he'd lent her back before the festival last year. There's a roaring in his ears at the implication, at the fact that Sakura hadn't _run away from him_ , she'd probably run away from all the pressures and the expectations of being the one to _save_ him. To give him everything he wanted.

No, Sakura wanted, _deserved_ , something in return. A testament that he would put in the effort she would; an acknowledgement that it wasn't obsession or compassion on either side, but something infinitely less powerful. And infinitely more real.

"I can give you that," Kakashi says slowly. "I'll speak to Tsunade, and see when I can leave…"

"About that," Sakura interrupts, looking sheepish for the first time since she's returned. He raises an eyebrow. "Pack your bags. I've already asked."

So she knew he'd accept. Maybe their bonds weren't so broken after all. Kakashi exhales heavily, too caught off-guard to be put out by her planning. It would be a difficult task - this was the bitter cold time of year in Snow, and a so-called legendary poisonous tree was _not_ going to be easy to find - but Sakura was worth it.

It was up to him to prove it.

"I'll go at first light," he promises, and stands to get ready immediately. Ordinary time isn't his way, but it's hers. Sakura stands with him, taking the talisman with her. She carefully manoeuvers it back into the protective cloth in her bag and shoots him a smile that's the stuff of memories.

"I won't see you off," Sakura says and he accepts that: it's never been good for team seven to watch someone leave. She puts her jacket on and pulls her warm hat low over her brow, tendrils of palest pink running wildly across her cheeks. He moves towards the door to let her out, still in disbelief, when she cements it. There's an inevitability to the way Sakura's lips drift across his cheek in a kiss that's both gentle and parting and nothing like the drunken passion or guilty sensation of the kisses they've shared before. "And truly...thanks."

This time, Sakura doesn't take with her all the colours of the world that she'd stolen before. This time, as he watches her tread sturdily through the snow, she's simply the brightest spot in a world that's brimming with life all of its own.

* * *

Kakashi pauses in the valley, weary beyond belief at the way the flakes of ice falling from the sky seem to make his steps slower with each pace. It's the ninety-ninth sunset since he left Konoha and the world is shades of silver and rose, and maybe this time he'll make a poem of it and recite it to Sakura when he returns. Resting his hand against the dark fir that seems to dominate the hills of the Snow border, it's a moment before his vision clears enough to see it.

A grove of trees, tall and proud with an unmistakably golden glow. But it's not the hue of the bark Kakashi looks at, is mesmerised by. It's the flowers, the impossible pink against the whiteness and evergreen sheen of the world that can only be one thing. Sakura blossoms. A few steps later, as though wary it's a mirage, and Kakashi throws his head back and laughs, free and unfettered in the empty space.

The flowers are sakura, but the bark itself is hawthorne. _Of course,_ he thinks.

Of course.

* * *

 **AN:** Well that's a wrap! I'd love to hear your thoughts, and thanks so much for all the wonderful (and thirsty) comments on this. I really struggled to finish this in a way I was happy with so I'd love to know if you think it works.

Another aspect of the legend of The Golden Bough (which is a real thing) is its use in ancient rituals for the fulfilment of vows.


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